


A story of rap battles, broken violins, and sad cats

by apolitecactus



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Ballet, Crack, Ed and Mustang write rap together, Ed has 12 stray cats, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Mustang is a music junkie who hates violins, Mustang is totally ADD, Mustang managed to get expelled from an art school, Mustang raps and participates in rap battles, Parental Roy Mustang, Spark spark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24850285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolitecactus/pseuds/apolitecactus
Summary: Ed was looking for a way to get rid of a dozen sad hungry kittens Al adopted in the last few days. As for Mustang, he was participating in a rap battle and had trouble coming up with rhymes for ‘Spark spark’ and ‘Woosh woosh’. How would they help each other? What do ballet, art, Mustang’s disdain for violins, fake cat breeds, and blackmail have to do with any of it?Fully inspired by Roy Mustang's rap from OVAs
Relationships: Edward Elric & Roy Mustang
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	A story of rap battles, broken violins, and sad cats

Ed could hear them from the outside. Sounds of something creaking and scratching as well as the obligatory shouting and shooting. The headquarters of one Colonel Roy Mustang never disappointed him – there was always something going on. Something that rarely had anything to do with the actual duties of a military Colonel.

Ed sighed. He decided that once he’ll be done with his philosopher’s stone quest, he’ll spend as much time trying to figure out the biggest secret in the universe – how Roy Mustang managed to procrastinate his way to the rank of Colonel. His best guess at the time was that Mustang was an illegitimate son of the Fuhrer. His second-best guess was that someone actively tried to sabotage the Amestrian military and this was why they ended up promoting Mustang. His third best guess was that there were no other able-bodied men or women in the entire Amestris who wanted Mustang’s job… So yes, this was one of the toughest riddles he ever encountered – for comparison, he already had clues on the philosopher’s stone, and the philosopher’s stone was considered to be a legend.

Something meowed behind him, and he sighed once again. Yes, he allowed Al to adopt one cat for the time being. Just one cat. Only while it was raining. The saddest smallest kitten that wouldn’t eat too much because Ed loved his food and wasn’t in any mood to share, thank you very much.

Al was beyond happy when Ed allowed it. So for some time (the rain somehow didn’t stop for several days now – Ed already suspected that he wasn’t the luckiest guy on Earth), Ed was glad that he allowed Al to keep this small cute kitten. But then, Ed started suspecting that something was amiss. For one, the kitten started eating much more than any kitten could possibly eat. Then, he noticed that sometimes the kitten had stripes, other times – spots, and once it was just plain white. Sometimes, Ed could hear an unsynchronized cat meowing coming from Al’s suit. And Al started walking much slower. So yes, he was pretty sure that his brother adopted more than one kitten. Significantly more. Maybe the entire stray cat population of the East city was now in Al’s suit.

“Do you remember the plan, Al?” he looked at Al sternly.

“Yes, you’ll distract the Colonel and the Team, and I’ll leave the kitten here,” Al answered, and he managed to sound apologetic and determined. He still didn’t admit that he had more than one kitten, and Ed was too soft to scold him into admitting anything. Especially when his brother sounded so apologetic. “But are you sure they’ll take care of him? My Pimpkie only eats well-fried fish”.

“Yeah, no worries about it, Al,” Ed shrugged and started walking in the direction of the office. The faster all these fish-eating monsters will be disposed of, the better. “I’ll hint to the Colonel that these cats are very good at destroying paperwork or… notes on the philosophy stone”, he added darkly. “And he’ll take all of them in no time. Considering Hawkeye sees through all his attempts to burn the paperwork, he’ll be happy to adopt all these paper destroying monsters”.

Ed grinned because his plan was perfect. He personally had a stash of Mustang’s paperwork that Mustang was too lazy to work on but not lazy enough to threaten his subordinate into taking home. Mustang used all the existing ways to avoid paperwork – including burning it, soaking wet, pretending that it didn’t exist, lying to his First Lieutenant… So of course, he’ll adopt as many cats as possible if it gives him another excuse not to work on the paperwork. Besides, if whoever gave him the rank of Colonel actually wanted to sabotage the military, adopting these hungry monsters was another great way to do it.

When Ed heard the sounds of screeching, shouting, and shooting intensifying, he wasn’t surprised that he was right next to the Colonel’s office. The entire Eastern command didn’t have anyone else who was able to produce so much work-unrelated activity in his work hours. Ed kicked the door of the office open and walked in confidently. Then he looked back at Al with the stern “remember the plan” stare.

The inside of the office fully corresponded with what he expected to see. Which could be summed up as ‘madness’. The Colonel was playing the violin – very badly, hence the sounds of screeching. Hawkeye was standing next to him with a stack of documents in one hand and a gun in another hand. A wall behind the Colonel was covered with bullet holes – Hawkeye clearly practised pinpoint shooting at the space around the Colonel. Everyone else in the office had dumbfounded looks and also didn’t do any work. So yes, this was a good demonstration for why Ed was getting new clues on the philosopher’s stone much more rarely than he wanted to get them.

“Yes, Sir, I agree that rap is a form of art, and I fully support your… hobby, even if I don’t fully understand how learning to play the violin in a few hours has anything to do with it. But Sir, the deadline for these reports is in less than an hour, and you’re supposed to practice your hobbies outside your work hours,” Hawkeye said while reloading her gun.

Mustang lazily waved with his hand and smiled. Now, this looked like another confirmation of Ed’s ‘someones’s-trying-to-sabotage-the-Amestrian-military-and-that’s-how-Mustang-got-to-be-a-Colonel’ theory. Like how on Earth could anyone look at this man and seriously think ‘oh, this is the perfect Colonel material, let’s give him all the promotions on Earth’?

“Yeah, but you really don’t understand”, Mustang flashed a charming smile at his First Lieutenant (Ed felt nauseous – how could any woman fall for that?). “See, I need a background track, and this extract from the Violin Concerto in D would really fit in there, and it’s a great way to combine modern art and classical music,” the expression on Mustang’s face changed to a look of slight offence. “Lieutenant, I only need a few more hours until I perfect it. I need just a little bit more support.”

There was something warm in Hawkeye’s eyes – and Ed felt nauseous once again because how on Earth could _Hawkeye_ fall for it. But then, Hawkeye shot once again – and Mustang barely managed to move his arm to avoid catching the bullet.

“The report. Now. No excuses anymore,” she said and returned back to her desk, indicating that the conversation was over. Mustang started slowly walking back to his inner office with a sad expression on his face – akin to all these kittens Al adopted the last few days. Right, the kittens. Ed thought that whatever just happened should have been a good distraction for Al to dump the kittens somewhere nearby, but he wasn’t sure. Then, he saw that Mustang finally noticed him. The look on Mustang’s face changed to a look of triumph. Oh yes, Ed almost forgot that he was yet another way for Mustang to avoid his paperwork.

“Fullmetal, what do we owe this privilege of having you back here?” Mustang said in an exaggeratedly polite tone. So yes, sarcasm and bullying, here we go again. “I admit I have a _little_ bit of time for you, _pipsqueak_.”

“WHO DO YOU CALL SO SMALL THAT HE AND 12 KITTENS WOULD FIT IN AL’S SUIT?”

Just when Ed was saying that, he heard meowing behind him once again. Oh, so Al finished with his part of the plan. All Ed had to do now was to persuade Mustang that kittens were very good for disposing of paperwork.

“Need to talk,” Ed said. Mustang nodded and gestured him to follow to his inner office. His inner office was just another epitome of madness. There were many sheets of paper lying around, all with illegible scribbles on them, and Ed suspected that this massive amount of work wasn’t done to fulfil his actual military duties.

“Do you happen to know any rhymes with the word ‘spark’?”, Mustang asked him. “Never mind,” Mustang muzzled when there was no answer. “So what did you want to talk about?”

Ed frowned. There weren’t any good ways to say something like: “We’re leaving you a dozen cats, and we hope you’ll take care of them. By the way, they only eat the fish of the best quality because somehow, stray cats in the East city are very picky”.

So instead, he gestured at the paper lying around and asked: “A writer’s block?”, then he shrugged. “Never mind. Park. Dark. Mark. Bark… Disembark.”

Mustang’s face brightened, and he grinned.

“I knew that you had other uses besides destroying buildings, Fullmetal! I could work with dark and disembark”, and he started quickly writing something on another sheet of paper, mumbling under his nose something suspiciously close to “ _spark spark I’ll burn you in the dark”_.

Ed looked around once again, thinking now how his plan wasn’t perfect after all. Mustang clearly didn’t have any problems risking Hawkeye’s fury for not doing his job, as he played his violin right in front of his Lieutenant. So no, he wouldn’t adopt a dozen or two dozen cats – Ed still didn’t know how many Al actually adopted – just for the sake of getting rid of the paperwork. Mustang was too brave and stupid for it.

“Any rhymes for ‘I’ll steal your girlfriend in no time’?”

“You do realize that poems are supposed to have a rhythm, right?” Ed deadpanned. When Mustang didn’t answer, still working on how to turn this horrendous line in something resembling poetry, Ed continued. “It’s simple. Metrical patterns, iamb…”

“Yeah, varying stressed and unstressed syllables. Iambic, trochaic, spondaic meters… I learned enough of this shit in the art school. They don’t know anything about the actual art. So a rhyme for ‘girlfriend’, please?”

Ed looked at his CO in astonishment. Mustang never used the word please. Ever. In any circumstances. He was too much of a bully for it. Besides, during the entirety of this conversation, Mustang forgot to even call him small.

“Bitter end. Comprehend. Overspend. Recommend…”, then Ed smiled because he had a cunning plan in mind. Mustang was too focused on his ‘poetry’ or whatever it was, so now Ed had a perfect opportunity to gather enough information for the future blackmail. “So what did you learn in your art school?”

_ “I’ll steal your girlfriend, so I recommend that you leave the West end, or it’ll be a bitter end”, _ Mustang was muttering under his nose, and Ed had a very hard time not laughing. “Flute, piano, classic poetry and ballet.”

Ed giggled very very quietly. Ballet. Yes, Mustang would have to cut him slack for years now if he ever expected Ed to never mention it ever again. Oh, how he wished to go back to Al right now and tell him about it.

“Words to describe explosion sounds?”

“Emm… Boom, blast, boosh, woosh, kaboom, varoom, whomp… So did you wear tights and a tutu for your ballet classes?” Ed didn’t ask for it, but he already had the image in mind. Though to be fair, there was nothing bad about pursuing your hobbies – and Mustang would probably have done much more good for the entire Amestris if he decided to focus on ballet. Even if Ed thought this way, he wasn’t noble enough not to tell about ballet to everyone who would be ready to listen. He grinned, also imagining how he was going to go back to the outer office and tell everyone.

_ “Woosh woosh, you’ll explode ‘cause you’re douche”, _ Mustang was muttering now. “Nah, I wore ordinary pants. And it’s not as bad as you imagine it to be. Great exercise. Besides, I got to date ballerinas”.

“Right”, Ed was happy to see that Mustang still didn’t pay any attention to what he was saying. “So what, did they expel you from the art school or something? How did you end up in the military?”

“Rhymes for ‘burn’?” Mustang was writing very fast now, and Ed could see that the lines he was producing involved a lot of words related to fire. “Yeah, they got mad at me because of a little bonfire and a few burned violins. Though I already had a letter of acceptance to the University of Arts. Didn’t go ‘cause they wouldn’t see the real art even if it were in front of them.”

“Churn? Learn… Urn, turn. So what exactly happened with these violins and the bonfire?”

_ “I’m Flame Alchemist and your heart will burn; y’all masochist, this is your downturn”, _ Mustang was writing on his sheet of paper now. His handwriting became very big and somehow smug, so Ed could easily read all of this horrendous poetry.

“Bonfire incident?”

Mustang shrugged dismissively, still focused on his rhymes.

“They re-arranged Mozart’s Flute Concerto for violins only!”, Mustang said with an offended look as if it was the biggest crime on earth. “I hate violins! And all these violin players are so smug about all the screeching they produce. I started learning violin today and I can already play half of the Tschaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in the quality it deserves. When I’ll be the Fuhrer, I’ll personally burn all violins.” Mustang said in the tone of a politician running an election campaign.

Then, he looked up, noticing Ed in front of him.

The look of utter excitement he had just a minute before disappeared.

Then, he stood there, definitely trying to remember _why_ he was saying all of it to _Ed_ of all people.

It was too much for Ed, and he finally burst off laughing. The emotions on Mustang’s face, the fact that he got expelled from the art school for a ‘bonfire’ with violins and he did it because he got offended for a very petty reason… The ballet exercises. And now the way how idiotically Mustang looked right now, when he realized _what_ and to _whom_ he was saying. Oh, this was enough blackmail material for the rest of Ed’s life. He even decided that he could share bits of it now because all of it was too good for Al and the Team to miss.

Then he heard it, the loud bang.

Ed stopped laughing and looked in the direction of new sounds. After the loud bang, there was more screeching, shouting, and shooting. He saw the Colonel tucking his gloves on his hands and running in the direction of the outer office, and he followed him.

The outer office was filled with cats.

About a dozen or so, they were running amok in the office, successfully avoiding Hawkeye’s shots. One cat was sitting next to the violin, and the violin was broken in half and its strings were torn. So that must have been where the bang came from. Another cat was eating something out of Breda’s bag. Exactly three of these cats were looking somewhat resembling sad and helpless, others were just little monsters in fur who finally were freed after spending the time in Al’s suit. Needless to say that everyone in the Team didn’t look even remotely happy about the cat invasion.

“Fullmetal, explain yourself”, Mustang said, now looking furious. “You’ll remove every single cat from my office and you’ll write a 12-page report about how it happened once you finish”, now Mustang impended a bit over Ed, standing close to him and looking entirely threatening. Then, a cat landed on his head, and Ed started laughing again because Mustang looking threatening with a cat on his head was incredible.

“Fullmetal, I was serious!” Mustang said once again, now trying to get rid of the cat on his head.

Now, Ed remembered about the blackmail option. Well, he wished he could use his blackmail material for something more important, but he loved his little brother and little brothers sometimes required sacrifices.

“Yeah, about that,” Ed gestured everyone to listen to him. “I have a story to tell about Colonel’s…” he whistled something sounding close to ‘ballet’. “… lessons.”

“What lessons?” Havoc asked, looking totally interested.

Ed whistled something close to ‘ballet’ once again, only to be dragged back to Mustang’s inner office.

“Don’t kill the cats”, Mustang said, looking at his team and closing the door after himself.

“Your conditions?” Mustang asked once they were in his inner office. Good. Direct to the negotiations – Ed liked it.

“You take all these cats. They only eat well-fried fish, by the way. Finally, your alchemy will be of use for something.”

“My alchemy is not for frying fish! It’s an eloquent art I have been practising for years, and I’d never fry fish with it.” Mustang answered looking offended.

“Though you seem to have no qualms about using it to burn your paperwork, Sir,” Ed looked at the door to see Hawkeye standing there. “Sir, you have only 12 minutes remaining until your report is due.”

“I know but see…” Mustang gestured something undefined in the air, apparently trying to convey how he really didn’t have time for the report. “Besides, I have to win this rap battle because you won’t allow me to burn him and he was talking really badly about my subordinate. I cannot just let him go after that.”

“Once again, as a subordinate who he was talking about, I don’t need you to do anything against him. And…”, Hawkeye smiled, and Ed felt chills running through his spine after seeing the threat in this smile. “I’ll personally inform every newspaper in Amestris about your ballet lessons, Sir, unless you finish your report now. And I also know where to find photos. The whole album of them, Sir.”

Mustang’s expression changed from lazy and focused to panicked and focused. He started writing the report the same moment, muttering to himself something akin to “why on Earth did I introduce her to my Aunt?”. Ed never saw Mustang actually doing any work, so he was quite surprised at his productivity this very moment. A 5-page report was finished in 10 minutes and it didn’t look rushed or low-quality from what Ed could see.

When Hawkeye left, telling something about ‘photo albums’, ‘newspapers’ and ‘the deadline tomorrow’ in a very threatening way, Mustang looked at Ed once again.

“What if I find someone to adopt them? Unlike you, Lilliput…”

“WHO DO YOU CALL SO SMALL THAT HE CAN’T EVEN LIFT A SINGLE CAT?”

“… I have enough friends to turn to ask them to adopt a cat – and unlike you, I wouldn’t even have to blackmail them,” Mustang finished with a smug grin.

Ed nodded. He didn’t care what happens to the cats – he only needed to get rid of them. Of all of them.

“Then ask Al to bring the first cat,” Mustang said while taking the phone in one hand and a notebook in another.

The first cat Al brought was one of the sad kitten types. She had gorgeous white fur and a fish in its mouth. Ed stood there, wondering how this kitten managed to get a fish while in Mustang’s office.

“Hi, Anjelica, nice to hear you,” Mustang was blabbing on the phone. “I saw your last performance, and it was amazing. I was always telling them that your fouettés are the best. I’m so glad that they took the right decision because you can’t really produce the “Swan Lake” without someone who can dance like you.”

Ed distanced himself from it. From what he could gather, Mustang actually was better at ballet references than his job which added another point to his whole ‘an-underlying-plot-to-sabotage-Amestrian-military” guess. They probably heard Mustang talking and granted him the rank of a Colonel the next second. There were no other possible explanations.

“See, why I’m calling… You know how my Aunt sometimes delivers exclusive items from Xing. So, this time they accidentally sent us a kitten. Yeah, I know it’s funny actually. Anyway, we don’t want to send the kitten back because you can imagine how it’ll feel in the desert,” Mustang was sounding very concerned now. If Ed didn’t know Mustang enough, he’d think that he actually cared about the kitten. “Yes, poor kitten, I know. And the thing is, it’s a royal Anolastanian right from the Emperor’s palace. I don’t really know if anyone can actually take care of it. You can imagine how I’m ill-equipped with my job… It only eats well-fried fish like all Anolastanians, you know?”, Mustang paused, listening to the answer. “Yeah, I wanted to keep it. It’s so beautiful… Crystal white fur, little paws, and it looks absolutely cute. You can really see it being one of the royal cats. So what do you think, would Eloisa be interested in it?” Mustang paused once again, listening. “Oh, so do you want to take it? Yes, I wanted to ask Eloisa first but if you’re interested, then, of course, I’ll send it to you. Don’t forget about the well-fried fish, okay?”

Shortly after, the call was over, and Mustang gestured for another kitten to be brought in. Ed was a bit astounded by the way Mustang managed to ‘sell’ the kitten. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he himself wouldn’t take it from Mustang, from the way he described it. And the fact that Mustang most likely created the exotic and absolutely unprovable story about its origins as well as likely fake breed, was amazing… He was glad that Al was listening to this because even though lying was bad, if they needed to lie, then this was a great example.

“Good evening, my dear Eloisa,” Mustang was talking now, sounding smug and mysterious. “Yes, I’ve heard, it’s unfortunate. The ‘Swan Lake’ will lose all its elegancy without you…” Mustang paused. “Yes, just like I was telling you last time we met, they couldn’t do shit. Sorry about my language, I’m so furious at their decision,” Mustang paused once again. “Yes, by the way, how do you think, would Anjelica adopt a kitten? It’s a peach-coloured Cretan shorthair. Yes, they’re very rare, how did you know? So good to finally speak to someone who knows about exotic cat breeds…”

In just an hour or so, Mustang managed to find someone to adopt all the cats. He came up with the names for breeds of every cat – mountain Hyacinthine, Xingese bobtail, Oriental Aster, peach-coloured Flameo… Every single cat received a fake origin story – saved from cat hunters in Aerugo, bought directly from Fuhrer’s mansion, alchemically created, a stray cat… Mustang explained that the stray cat one was adopted by a friend of his who had a very kind heart. Apparently, he had only one friend who didn’t need to hear flowery lies to adopt a stray cat. How characteristic of Mustang, Ed thought.

Having finished with the cats, Mustang walked to the outer office.

“Falman, Fuery, take all the cats to the vet. Fullmetal will pay for their treatment from his own budget,” Ed didn’t have any qualms about it. Well, he had to pay for his mistakes and allowing Al to adopt a kitten was clearly a very stupid one. “Then, go to the post and send them to these addresses,” Mustang gave them a sheet of paper with addresses and names. “You should also put these words on each collar. Don’t confuse them. Each person gets the specific cat they wanted to adopt.”

“Sir, sorry, but what is a ‘Flaming Rex’? Is it the name of the cat?”

“Al will tell you, right? Al, you’ll go with them and write a certificate for each cat, explaining its origins and the characteristics of each breed,” Mustang gestured Al to join Falman and Fuery. “I don’t care what a ‘Flaming Rex’ is or does but I expect you to do a good job, understood?” and he looked at Al threateningly. Ed didn’t like it – Mustang didn’t have any right to order Al around like he was his CO or a father – but at the same time, he knew that Al needed it. He needed to see how much of a job rehoming a cat is, let alone 12 of them. And Ed was too soft to reprimand him for adopting all these cats. So he didn’t say anything when Al left, muttering under his nose something about plausible descriptions of non-existent cat breeds.

“Fullmetal, there’s one thing I wanted to discuss with you,” Mustang said, and Ed followed him back to the inner office. He suspected that it was another discussion about how he was to forget everything about ballet classes and the bonfire incident. To be fair, after Mustang so efficiently got rid of the cats, Ed was too thankful to ever mention these things ever again. However, Mustang didn’t invite him to discuss ballet once again.

Instead, Mustang gave him a folder. Ed opened it and found many documents inside. The first document contained a report from a small city in the West where people saw a strange alchemic reaction. The witnesses felt that the air was manipulated around them, and then they smelt something in the air – its smell was like bleach. The air that was manipulated had a yellow-green colour and then its fire had a blueish colour. The report on the next page stated that the gas was chlorine – just like Ed suspected. Then, there were pages and pages of alchemic notations all proving that in order to create this much chlorine in a place with very little chlorine salts in the soil, one needed to have a philosopher’s stone. Next pages had all the usual stuff – train schedules, the maps, a table with local prices of goods, and a small note on what to pack for the trip – this time, it was only warm clothes and an umbrella. Though usually, Mustang had fun with this last note – for instance, suggesting them to pack ‘dwarf swords’ or ‘micro clothing’ – this time, it was plain and simple, including only a few actually necessary items.

“A new philosopher’s stone clue?” Ed asked astounded. He looked at the notations once again. These must have taken a lot of time. The fact itself that Mustang noticed someone creating a chlorine fire somewhere was quite impressive – usually, there was an abundance of chloride salts in the soils, so creating chlorine out of it was rarely something admirable. So to find out this specific clue, Mustang had to look at every strange alchemic incident and see if anything in them indicated that the alchemists didn’t follow the equivalent exchange.

The amount of research that went in proving that there was a philosopher’s stone was also astonishing. Mustang had to dig through reports about local soils, alchemic texts about chlorine and soil compositions, and the notations included references to Cretan alchemists. Only now, Ed noticed dark rings under Mustang’s eyes. He must have been working overtime to do this. The reason why there weren’t any jokes in the note at the end was clear to him now. Ed inwardly thanked whoever decided to sabotage Amestrian military by promoting Mustang – even if the guy rarely did anything useful for the military, he was a godsend when it came to helping Ed with his philosopher’s stone research.

“I had to refer to my teacher’s notes and a few secret reports… Besides, you don’t know Cretan”, Mustang started, and he was sounding apologetic as if making excuses for how much work he had done to help Ed. “It didn’t take me more than a few hours anyway, so I figured that I’d better do it rather than seeing another failure of yours, pipsqueak.”

“WHO DID YOU CALL SO SMALL THAT YOU’D NEED A MICROSCOPE TO SEE HIM?”

“I just hope you’ll never speak of whatever you heard today ever again,” Mustang continued. “Even if you want to blackmail me into something else, I won’t do anything because this titbit of information cannot cost me more than rehoming 12 cats,” Mustang looked away, and Ed could see for a second a barely concealed offence.

If Ed thought about it, then Mustang was pulling overnights to give him a philosopher’s stone clue and prepare all other useful materials for his trip, whereas Ed came by and blackmailed him into finding someone to adopt 12 stray cats… Yes, Ed didn’t look like a good guy in this situation, and Mustang had every right to be offended. Besides, Ed never really thought about how much work Mustang did to give him new clues for the philosopher’s stone. Ed suspected that he had to keep tabs on the rumours about the philosopher’s stone and have a good network of informants – which Mustang did – and also look over the rumours like an alchemist, to know which ones actually looked like a philosopher’s stone. Ed already received several reports where the only clue was an impossible alchemic reaction rather than a reaction with a red glow or a flashing stone in someone’s hands. If Ed thought about it, then at least some of these clues required a lot of alchemic calculations in order to find out if these were actually impossible reactions. Just this time, since chlorine was in abundance everywhere, Mustang attached these calculations to his folder – to show Ed that it was actually worth it.

Ed looked at Mustang once again, now with a new realization in mind. Well, he knew that the Colonel cared about him, and he personally kind of cared for the Colonel too – or he’d leave his command a long time ago, as every single officer of the rank of Colonel or higher offered him to work for them instead of the bully he had for a commander. But this time, he received first-hand evidence that Mustang actually really cared about him. Knowing that Mustang was beyond lazy – it was surprising to see him doing so much for him.

“I promise I won’t speak of it to anyone,” Ed said finally after the long pause. “How about I help you with this line?” he gestured at the piece of paper in Mustang’s hands.

“’m fine. ’m in no mood to give you more blackmail material.”

“Well, one of your lines is _“four is bigger than three, I’m changing the beat, I’m beat factory”._ I know there’re different definitions of art, but nowhere in the universe this can be considered good art.”

Mustang sulked in his seat.

“It’s a reference to the changing meter in music… Like you know, at the end of the ‘Rite of Spring’,” when Mustang saw no reaction or understanding on Ed’s face, he looked at Ed _concerned_. “You haven’t heard the ‘Rite of Spring’, have you? It has an appalling number of violins in it, but otherwise, it’s worth a listen. Or two. Or many. There’re also 3 flutes, which is great because modern composers seem to not understand the flute as an instrument,” Mustang stopped, once again aware of _what_ he was telling and to _whom_. “Sorry, I had to work overnight… And you use this chance to make me give you all this information. How inconsiderate of you.”

“Well, I learned from the best,” Ed smiled, looking at Mustang once again. He did indeed learn how to manipulate people from the very man in front of him. “You can… show me this “Right in Spring” piece next time we meet – I need to learn more about music anyway because there’re alchemists who code their secrets in music notations.”

“Yeah, whatever you want. Just make sure you come to see me when I have paperwork to do. And it’s called “Rite of Spring”, R-I-T-E.” Mustang looked disinterested once again, but Ed could see quite well that Mustang was actually glad to have a chance to show Ed some music in the future – Ed learned to read his emotions in all these years under his command. Well, that and the fact that Mustang probably was a music junkie who’d be happy to share his favourite music with someone else.

“Shirts,” Ed said then. “The rhyme to skirts.”

They worked together for a few more hours – until Mustang had to leave for the rap battle. The poetry was still horrendous in its quality, but Ed admitted that it was still better than whatever Mustang had initially. And he personally felt strangely happy that he helped. Because even if Mustang was a complete jerk most of the times, he was his CO jerk – and a caring one at that – and Ed was happy to help him in his eloquent procrastination routine.

He took his coat from the hanger, turned off the lights – everyone else already left, and he was staying here only because Mustang made him clean the office after the cat invasion – and closed the door. After leaving the building, he started walking to the West, in the direction of the West-end Independent Theatre. Even if Mustang didn’t invite him, he planned to see the rap battle himself and to secretly cheer for his CO. And most likely help him with the rhymes once Mustang runs out of the prepared ones – because, as Ed had to admit, Mustang was terrible at rapping, and while Ed wasn’t good at it either, he at least could come up with the rhymes any time he wanted. Ed smiled. There wasn’t a lot he could help Mustang with – whereas Mustang used every opportunity to help him with the philosopher’s stone research – and Ed was happy for once that he’ll be able to help Mustang in response.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic because I felt that my WIP got too angsty and I also had a few remaining lines of Ed and Roy bickering so I could use them for this fic.
> 
> If you haven't seen Mustang's rap, you have to - it's great.
> 
> Besides, I don't agree with Ed's views on ballet, nor with Roy's disdain for violins.
> 
> If you're interested, Mustang wanted to create something similar to 'CunninLynguists - Linguistics' when he was practicing the violin. Even the referenced concert is the same one used by CunninLyngusts for the backtrack. Though in no way, Mustang would ever come up with something as good as Linguistics. Other mentioned music pieces are Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, Mozart's Flute Concerto No. 1, Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring'. 
> 
> Yes, and the creation of this fic was greatly helped by googling 'rhymes for insert word' because I'm bad at rhyming. Though I'm bad enough to emulate Mustang's rapping


End file.
